讲座主题 

From Science of Wealth to Science of Exchange: Origins of Market’s Epistemic Privilege in Neoclassical Economics

 讲座时间 

2022年5月6日（周五） 13:30-15:30

 讲座地点 

浙江大学紫金港西区创意大楼A座1127

 讲座内容 

Classical political economy of Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Marx was the science of national wealth. Its central focus was on production, capital accumulation,and growth. Its key proposition was that distribution of income, population dynamics, and social institutions determined the center of gravity around which market prices fluctuated. This picture of the economy changed in the early 1870s with the almost simultaneous and independent publication of three books by economists in three different countries—Jevons, Menger, and Walras—books that put market exchange and prices at the center of economy. By using private letters and published works of these economists and by combining the theory of scientific intellectual movements with field theory, this article offers a sociological explanation of how three authors in three different intellectual contexts produced works that converged in conceptualizing market exchange as the fundamental determinant of economic activity. Despite remarkable differences in intellectual contexts, all three authors exploited the same opportunity structure offered by classical political economy: although classical political economy advocated deduction and universal economic laws, its theoretical core was eclectic and its propositions were attuned to historical and social particulars. Such an opportunity structure enabled the same legitimate intellectual strategy across different intellectual fields: build a deductive theory by tapping into ideas such as subjective utility and market equilibrium, which were at the margins of economic thinking until then; and, subsume all economic thought under a single deductive theory. As a result, political economy became the science of exchange not because Jevons, Menger, and Walras found first principles that explain existing economic phenomena in a more satisfactory manner. To the contrary, political economy became the science of exchange because these thinkers could carry the intellectual project of building a deductive science from first principles, regardless of whether it explained economic phenomena more thoroughly.

 主讲人 

Kurtuluş Gemici，加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校社会学博士，师从著名历史社会学家Micheal Mann，现任浙江大学社会学系文科“百人计划A”研究员。其研究领域为金融社会学、政治经济学、政治社会学、经济社会学和社会网络研究等。

 评议人 

李林倬，美国芝加哥大学社会学博士，现任浙江大学新百人计划研究员（第二类）。研究兴趣包括经济社会学和计算社会学中的如下一些议题: 垄断问题，生产组织如何应对不确定性，文化类市场的组织结构, 时尚与创新，市场流动性的社会结构，文化系统变革的内生动力等。

 主持人 

李昂然，美国康涅狄格大学社会学博士，现任浙江大学社会学系“百人计划B”研究员。其研究兴趣主要包括家庭学校教育与代际流动的关系以及高等教育公平问题。